The Old Tree

The Old Tree - created by RedDwarf Games - is a creepy yet beautiful game playable on steam for free. You play as the green alien looking root shown above and it takes you on an interesting journey through an alien world.

It was a surprisingly short game - at most 15 minutes depending on how long you take to solve puzzles. Though some puzzles are fairly creative, most only require one or two clicks on the screen to solve making it way too easy and simple - almost not entertaining at all. Considering the length of the game, there weren't many puzzles to solve, in total around 5-7. It is a good short play, however not enough to satisfy players.

At the start of the game, there were no rules or directions as to what you had to do. There were however, a bunch of eggs and a door. Without knowing the controls or the story of the game it was definitely confusing and made me feel lost. The most obvious move was the click the door which opens but nothing else happened. The next most obvious move was to click the eggs which hatched out our main character - the alien root.

It doesn't take much to learn the controls of the game as the only control is the mouse, however it would help to tell players beforehand that they have no control over the green character itself. Before all this was figured out, I aimlessly pressed the arrow keys and space bar, thinking it would have an effect on the game.

The speed at which the root crawled was painfully slow! I understand that it lets players take in their surroundings and admire the game art - which I must admit is very aesthetic - however it became more of a drab than anything else.

This is the first game I've played which has absolutely no story or value. Despite all the negatives, the art and the creepy mood make up for the lack of game play and story. The art style is extremely unique - almost like a dark, goth style and with the addition of the root character, makes the entire game much more enchanting. It sort of has the mood of Limbo - another dark themed game. In a way, this game is enjoyable because it is different - unlike the usual action packed game The Old Tree is calming, almost like a bedtime story.

The ideas behind this game has potential but to be a game, it has to be much more interactive than just one or two clicks of the mouse. It would have done well as an animated short film or children's book even thought its beginning, middle, and end is not very clear. With a lot of imagination, maybe it's possible to see a story in this game.

Overall it's not a horrible game but it's not great either. You may have completely different opinions to me so I'll suggest to try for yourself if you have time to spare.